4
ORANGE & WHITE
College of Science, Mathematics and Technology
Soaring in Student Success This fall, the College of Science, Mathematics and Technology received a threeyear, $748,832 grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program. The project “Readiness, Recruitment, Retention, Graduation – Four Dimensions for Achieving Hispanic Student STEM Success” targets increasing learning and research opportunities and boosting the number of students graduating in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.
Improved articulation agreements with state community and technical colleges are another benefit from the grant that will positively impact university students. Existing agreements will be enhanced with Texas State Technical College Harlingen and South Texas College in McAllen.
UTB swept the top three prizes at the 2011 University of Texas System Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Student Research Conference held in late September at The University of Texas at Arlington. Senior biology and The grant will enable the college’s faculty and staff to create a summer bridge chemistry major Gerardo Rosas of Brownsville placed first with his research on program consisting of engineering and calculus readiness workshops for area breast cancer cells during a summer internship at The University of Texas at San high school students. High school students will also get to design, build and Antonio Health Sciences Center. The second place team of biology and chemisprogram their own robots to enter in the For Interest in Robotics, Science and try majors Ravi Thakker, Rafael Otero and Anuar Cantu, all from Brownsville, Technology Tech Challenge Tournament. won with research comparing the ultrastructural changes in the hippocampus in normal and epileptic rats. Biology and environmental science major Gloria “We held the Tech Challenge last spring for the first time, and it was extremely Alcaraz of Brownsville received third place with research on establishing a water successful, giving high school students valuable hands-on experience,” said Dr. index for Brownsville’s resacas. Mikhail Bouniaev, Dean of the College of Science, Mathematics and Technology. The University of Texasquality at Brownsville